Category: Guest Posts

Grammar Sex

(How Dangling Your Participle Can Hurt Your Book Sales)

By Author, Robert Germaux

Okay, I got your attention with that grammar sex thing, right? I’m sure you already know that in the wild and crazy world of eBooks, getting people to look at your work is often more difficult than it was to actually write the thing in the first place. And I’m sure you also know why. It’s because there is an inordinate amount of simply awful writing out there, so much so that the sheer volume of it can easily overwhelm the relatively few really good books, books like yours. The best way to keep your artfully-crafted masterpiece from drowning in that sea of mediocrity is to do everything you can to separate it from those thousands of other books. Research shows, and here I’m talking my made-up research, but I’m sure actual research would back me up on this . . . anyway, research, real or otherwise, indicates that once you’ve grabbed your readers’ attention (by, for example, throwing the word sex into your title), the best way to keep them turning those pages is to present them with prose so superbly written, so free of errors in spelling and punctuation and syntax, that they simply lose themselves in your wonderful narrative.

So how do you go about guaranteeing that your book lands in the can’t-put-it-down category? There are several potential paths to that goal, a few of which I’ll list here.

You can follow my example and spend thirty-one years as a high school English teacher before beginning your writing career. Frankly, unless you’re at a total loss about what to do with the next three decades of your life, I’d skip this option.

Find out where the retired English teachers in your area hang out and pay them a visit. It wouldn’t hurt to pick up a couple boxes of donuts along the way and put them on a table off to one side of the room. The retirees might think they’re at yet another faculty meeting, and you could give them your manuscript to proofread while they enjoy the free pastries.

Join a writers group and identify the best writer there. Then befriend that person (praise, pastries, whatever) and be completely open to every comment, suggestion or criticism that individual has to offer.

Go Google crazy. The problem here, of course, is that you’d have to at least know what was wrong and then Google a solution. Plus, contrary to what you might have heard, you really can’t trust everything you read on the Net. (True story: The Wikipedia entry for one of my college roommates, who went on to become a best-selling author, says he was born in 1951, which would have made Richard twelve our freshman year. I’m pretty sure I would have noticed.)

In the end, the how isn’t as important as the what. One way or another, get help.

Even the best writers occasionally hit a literary speed bump, and it’s nice to have someone around to pick you up and point you in the right direction when that happens.

A final word of advice, something I used to tell my high school students. There’s no such thing as good writing, just good rewriting. So good luck with your writing and, especially, your rewriting.

About Robert Germaux:

Robert Germaux is, indeed, a retired English teacher, with two books currently on Amazon: Small Talk (a crime novel set in Pittsburgh) and The Backup Husband (a modern-day love story which includes a chapter

or two on that whole grammar sex thing). Please visit Robert Germaux on his website.